Resource Center

School districts ramping up security against malware

East Maine School District in Morton Grove, Illinois was recently attacked by malware causing a district-wide shutdown of network traffic, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Steve Feldman, managing director of TechCare/All Covered addressed the attack at a recent board meeting. During his address, he said malware hijacked the central processing units of the district's system eventually shutting down the entire network.

Judith Satkiewicz, the district's director of technology, told the paper that department technicians and workers got rid of the malware attack throughout the Labor Day weekend..

In Abilene, Texas, the Abilene Independent School District spends more than $63,000 per year on its antivrus, content filtering and spyware protection software, reports the Abilene Reporter News.

"If a hacker really wanted to get in and if they used sophisticated tools, most school districts would not be able to withstand that type of attack," Mark Gabehart, AISD's chief technology officer, told the paper.

The most recent attack against the the district security system was last spring when a fake email was sent to AISD employees, says the paper.